He said while he is “nervous” about returning, he is desperate to help solve the 25-year mystery that has plagued his family.

Eddie, from Lincolnshire, told the Daily Mirror: “I feel apprehensive because this feels different from the search in 2012.

Kerry Needham at the farmhouse on Kos where the latest search is focused (Image: Daily Mirror)

“The police definitely think that Ben is no longer alive. I just think there are things we don’t know.

"I want to look them in the eyes. I believe they have a strong indication that something is amiss.

“They have told us to prepare for the worst, they have told us gruesomely how he could have been crushed by a digger.

“But if they do find Ben, it is the end of one nightmare and the beginning of another. It’s a horrible feeling living with this never-ending pain of guilt.

"This police theory of an accident makes that even worse.”

Little Ben went missing on the Greek island in 1991 (Image: PA)

Police demolish a section of the farmhouse in the search for Ben (Image: Daily Mirror, Philip Coburn)

On the day Ben vanished, Eddie’s wife Christine, 64, had brought the toddler to visit his grandad at work at the farmhouse.

Eddie has found coping with the guilt of being in charge of Ben when he disappeared almost unbearable.

He said: “At the end of the day he was with me and his grandma and he went missing in our care.

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And he said of Ben’s mum, Kerry, 43: “I’m surprised my daughter doesn’t hate me. How she must feel I don’t know.”

But Kerry, who was waitressing at a nearby hotel that day, said of her dad’s painful journey to Kos: “I’m proud that he has the courage to go there – I haven’t at the moment. It shows my pappa’s strength.”

The farmhouse in Iraklis, Kos, where Ben Needham went missing from 25 years ago (Image: Daily Mirror)

Last month, the Daily Mirror exclusively revealed that police decided to dig again in Greece after a “significant” new witness came forward.

The man claimed his pal, digger driver Konstantinos “Dino” Barkas, may have killed Ben in an accident.

The witness claims he saw Ben playing near the site Dino was working on. He later said Dino admitted it was “possible” he may have crushed the toddler.

Two weeks after Ben’s disappearance, Eddie’s boss, Michaelis Kypreos – who died of a heart attack three days after hearing of the first dig in 2012 – turned up at the Needhams’ caravan.

He told Eddie: “This is history now. Come back to work.

The grandfather says he was furious but Eddie said he no choice but to return to work to support his family.

Shortly after Ben went missing, Eddie laid foundations under the site of the farmhouse extension that police have just pulled down.

'Dinos' Barkas may have accidentally killed Ben according to a witness (Image: Mirror)

But he is not sure if the same foundations remain, or if new ones were put in before the building was erected. And that is what he hopes to find out.

He is also keen to thank the Hellenic Rescue and Red Cross volunteers who have selflessly devoted so much time to the search.

Eddie believes if Ben’s body was concealed under the building it was no accident.

He said: “If he was buried there he has been buried there on purpose.

“I don’t believe it though, they had no reason to hide an accident,” he said of the theory he was hit by a digger.

“They could have just said, ‘Why were you not looking after the boy?’.”

“I can’t believe anybody would bury a baby. Nobody would be that evil.

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The grandad’s eyes light up when he is asked to describe Ben. He says: “He was a hot potato. So cheeky, so happy. Me and Chris took him everywhere. We loved him. He was my first grandchild and it felt marvellous when he was born.”

Asked why he feels so guilty, Eddie said he and Christine first moved to Kos, in December 1990, and convinced Kerry to follow them out with Ben.

Fighting back tears, he said: “We were missing Ben that much when we came to Kos we sort of talked Kerry into coming.